Coffee Republic
by Miss Paracosm
Summary: Avery was a creature of habit. Joker story.
1. Le Petit Cafe

Avery was a creature of habit. From a very young age, her mind had been wired to follow structure and routine. Some would have found that kind of lifestyle dreary, but she was perfectly content with her [s]predictable[/s] life.

Today was Sunday, and despite the blistering weather Avery was perched on her [i]typical[/i] seat in the [i]same café[/i] - the only decent café in Gotham, really. It was a cute little thing, tucked away in the corner of Ciceril Street and quite ambigous. [i]Le Petit Café.[/i] No one here was French, so she wasn't quite sure why they had called it that, rather than [i]The Small Cafe.[/i]

It sounded fancier, she supposed.

Resting her chin against her palm, she let her light brown eyes roam around the small shop, noting how deserted the place was. Not that she didn't expect it. Any sensible person would be outside right now, soaking up the warmth and light while it lasted. Bar one graying man skimming over a newspaper in the corner, she was the only one there.

"One caramel latte and a vanilla cheesecake?"

Avery jumped, nearly sending her camera and her phone crashing onto the ground. The voice was familiar, tinged with a (fake) French accent and slightly amused. Whether it was at her fright or at how she always ordered the same thing, she didn't know. Probably both.

"Oh, yes. Thanks Cynthia." She offered a wry smile, twining her hands together and resting them on the smooth table top.

"No problem, sweetie. Cake's on the house." Cythia winked, dark blue eyes flashing . "Happy Harvey Dent Day."

"Happy... Harvey Dent Day." The petite waitress was already gone, and her voice died down to a mumble at that realization.

Avery had completely forgotten that was [i]today[/i]. She felt terrible; that man had done so much for Gotham, and she hadn't even remembered to celebrate it. It was a ceremony that had been going on for two years, ever since he had died in that warehouse explosion. Avery winced at the memory. That had been a tragic few weeks.

She dismissed the awful memory, shaking her head and instead staring out of the window with a pensive expression. The view wasn't all that spectacular; a dirty road, a few cyclists, and a dry cleaners. The most exciting thing was [i]La Petit Café's[/i] curtains, which reminded her of Dorothy's dress from The Wizard of Oz.

"Here you go. That'll be two dollars fourty." Cynthia placed the coffee and cake down tentatively, before tucking some stray black hairs back into her tight bun.

Avery snapped out of her daze, fumbling in her black purse until she found her wallet. Her mind was elsewhere at that point, so rather than finding the appropriate change she just handed her a five dollar note and muttered; "Keep the change."

Cynthia smiled and wandered off, the clicking of her high heels and the murmuring of the television the only sounds heard.

Her phone began to ring then, as if desperate to shatter the peaceful quiet, vibrating and crying shrilly while she fished it out of her bag. It was a text message from her mother.

[i]Where are you? You were supposed to meet us on Cleve. St ten minutes ago! You promised your brother that you would come to this parade, and if you disappoint him again-[/i]

Avery snapped the phone shut with a heaving sigh. Reading her mother's texts wasn't much different from her raving on right in her ear. Pushing back the chair with a groan of wood against wood, she hurried out of the door; leaving her latte and cheesecake abandoned on the quaint little table.

No matter how small, that was the first sign of her structure and routine crumbling.


	2. Jack of All Trades

Seeing as Avery often opted for quieter, more ordered scenery, it was inevitable that she would despise parades. The narrow streets and alleys of Gotham were crammed with squirming, sweating bodies, like maggots. It made her shudder, and she shoved her way through the thick crowd of people with their mindless chatter humming in her ears. A headache was already beginning to blossom in her temple.

There was only one name on everyone's lips, and Avery was growing tired of the consistent chanting. Harvey, Harvey, Harvey. Or maybe she was just being grouchy because of the weather.

The heat was making sweat form under her dark fringe, and she pushed her hair back irritably while also trying to elbow past a shady looking guy in a grey hoodie, who was probably concealing a knife somewhere on his person.

Three cheers for multitasking.

"Ava!" Flustered as she was, when she heard her little brother cry out she was beyond relieved. Her brown eyes flickered over to the source of the noise and she smiled when she spotted Sammy, waving eagerly from behind his mother. His mother looked less happy to see her, features pinched together as if she had just been sucking on a lemon.

"Hey, Sammy." It took some more shoving and squeezing to get to them, but when she did she crouched down next to her brother and ruffled his fair hair. "How are you?"

He shrugged, and Avery glanced up to greet her mother. "Hi, Mom."

It was a shame, but Avery had never been on good terms with her mother. It's not that she didn't [i]love[/i] her, it was just that Jasmine Williams had obviously expected a lot of her eldest daughter, and she hadn't delivered. There was always this constant glint of disappointment in her dark green eyes, and it made her daughter feel guilty.

Mostly because she knew she was a disappointment - Avery was the perfect example of the phrase 'Jack of all trades, Ace of none'. She had whizzed through so many jobs in the past few years and yet she didn't stand out in any of them. Except journalism - she had kept that job up fairly well, for six months or so. But then she had hit the cruel, hard wall of 'Writer's Block' and it all spiraled downwards from there.

"Happy Harvey Dent Day, Avery." Jasmine adjusted the pale blue sundress she was wearing, before nodding towards the center of the swarming crowd. "The Mayor's about to give his speech, and then the parade's going to start. You came just in time."

"Yeah, sorry about that. I was, uh, at a cafe."

"I thought so." She offered her daughter a small smile, before ushering Sammy, who was hiding behind the soft folds of her dress, into the mass of people and closer to the Mayor.

The dark-haired man was already up on the small stage, that stood at the very edge of Cleve. St - obviously constructed just for this occasion. He was tapping the microphone with slender, pale fingers that made small screams of static burst across the air, effectively quieting some of the more rowdy members of the audience.

"Thank you all for coming." He murmured into the microphone, his eyes (which were heavily smeared with eyeliner, might I add) raking across the intent audience. "We are here today to commemorate, for the second year in a row, the tragic death of our White Knight - Harvey Dent."

Harvey Dent. That was the hundredth time Avery had heard that name uttered today - and yet, when the Mayor said it, a peculiar sensation hit her. It was probably coincidence - his name had never evoked anything inside of her before, but at that moment the hairs on the back of her neck stood on edge and her skin crawled and writhed uncomfortably. For such a blazing hot day, her body felt frozen, and the back of her mother's blonde head blurred as she blinked and stumbled back, separating herself from the large crowd.

"Pull yourself together, Avery." She muttered to herself, pushing back her fringe again and leaning against the sign post that boldly stated 'Cleve St.'

But that prickling, icy feeling just wouldn't go away, and the brunette sighed, dropping her hand from her forehead and stepping forward to return to her mother. She could stomach the weird feeling for as long as this godforsaken celebration would continue.

And that's when she saw it. A flash, a gleam, a glint, in the corner of her eye. A tiny blip on her radar. But that little blip was a bright violet, and her throat tightened as it disappeared into the greys and blacks that the citizens were wearing. Her mind jumped to the worst conclusion instantly. Everyone in Gotham knew what - or rather, who - purple was synonymous with. No one was dumb enough to wear purple in public.

Avery glanced over at her mother; she was holding her little brother's hand. She bit down on her lip, looking over to where she had seen the burst of colour, before deciding. The weight of what she was about to do pressed against her chest, but she shrugged it off. It probably wasn't even him.

Stupid girl.

She ducked into the crowd, feeling compelled to follow the vibrant colour.


End file.
